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Neighbors standing with Oak Park standard-bearer

Oak Park citizens are decrying several recent acts of neighborhood vandalism which they view as not just unpatriotic, but downright heartless.

Seven full-sized flags have been stolen during the past week from near the Brentwood Road entrance to the northwest Bartlesville community. The missing flags were part of a patriotic display that, in the past few years, has become a popular tradition in the community, Oak Park residents said.

The “Street of Honor” is the personal project of local resident Bob Hunley, a 64-year-old retired Army sergeant.

Since moving here from Virginia four years ago, the wheelchair-bound veteran has painstakingly put out more than 100 flags along his street. The displays are created before Memorial Day, Independence Day and Veterans’ Day.

“I didn’t have nearly as many of the flags when I started,” Hunley said Tuesday. “Last Friday, we put 180 of them up.”

By adding a few flags a year to the display, the “Street of Honor” now stretches the length of Inwood Drive around the corner on Brentwood. All of the flags are uniform size (3-by-5 feet), mounted on PVC poles and planted in half-inch rebar that has been implanted in the yards.

Total cost of the project, at $25-per-flag, is estimated to be approximately $3,500.

“My goal is just to show respect to the military,” Hunley said. “The flag idea just hit me one day when I was trying to figure out a way to give back for what my own service had given me.”

While there is some duplication in the flag types, there are nearly 100 different varieties in the display. Most represent different branches of the military. All have American-service themes.

“There are flags there honoring policemen and firefighters,” the Army veteran said. “I consider them to be almost another branch of the military.”

Hunley retired from the Army in 1991 after more than two decades of active service that included overseas tours during the Vietnam War and Desert Storm. He said it is not uncommon for people who are driving past the flags to stop and express their appreciation to him — both for the display and his military service.

Regarding the theft of the flags, Hunley said the initial incidents last weekend “really disturbed me.”

Two flags were discovered missing Saturday. Four more were stolen Sunday night, although one — a U.S. flag that had been thrown from a vehicle as it sped from the subdivision — was later returned to him.

“I’ve already replaced the others that were taken and I’ll continue to do so for as long as I can,” Hunley added.

Following the latest theft Monday night, vigilant neighbors are on high alert.

“Honestly, what kind of a person would do something like that?” asked Cynthia Cox, whose house on Brentwood lies just beyond the expanding line of flags.

The Bartlesville Police Department said a newer-model silver vehicle was believed to have been involved in the Sunday incident. BPD officers also have been on the lookout for the thieves.